


Perfect timing

by PoisonJack



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Established Relationship, Explosions, Fluff, General au, Jack is a worried and pissed off mother hen, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Rhys as unnecessary hero, fuck covered honey badger, real talk like use your brain not your heart kiddo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:52:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6348826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonJack/pseuds/PoisonJack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys unnecessarily shields Jack from an explosion. He suffers a minor wound, and proposes to Jack who gives him major shit over his timing. </p><p>From the sentence prompts meme: "This is probably a bad time, but marry me?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect timing

**Author's Note:**

> This can also be found on my tumblr [here](http://purge-that-urge-rhackathon.tumblr.com/post/141364742980/this-is-probably-a-bad-time-but-marry-me).

There was smoke and dust in the air, the smell of copper thick in his nose, and Jack was in a rage. 

Rhys– dumb, stupid, protective idiot that he was- had seen the psycho coming with just enough time to throw himself in front of Jack. The CEO’s soldier’s were already on the offensive, but the crazy son of a taint was either wearing some kind of body armor or high out of his mind on something, because the bullets hadn’t slowed him down from crossing the line until almost too late. 

The explosion had taken out a few of Jack’s men, a good chunk of cover, and one of his cars. The man himself was fine, unscathed but for orange dust on his ass and the impact of Rhys’ lanky-ass form falling on top of him. The younger man groaned in pain on top of Jack before the older man had wiggled from beneath him to assess the damage.

“You stupid little shit, what were you thinking?!” Jack ground out as he tried to find the source of the red blooming across Rhys’ torso. Everything around them was either splashed crimson, smoking grey, or covered in orange dust. 

“ _Wasn’t_ ,” Rhys ground out, coughing on the smoke and dirt in the air.

“Yeah no shit.” Jack found the source of the wound– some shrapnel, not too deep, but deep enough for concern. He was putting pressure on the wound as Rhys cried out and gripped Jack’s bicep hard.

“You’re alright?” the younger man asked, his eyes traveling up where Jack was putting pressure on him to scan over his body. His echoeye lit up blue, telling him Jack’s pulse was racing and he was angry as hell, but otherwise just fine.

“Of course I’m fine. In case you forgot, I’m wearing body armor you dipshit.”

Rhys actually laughed, and it caused pain to surge through him. He started spouting off some rather interesting cuss words to deal with it. He was breathing hard as Jack was digging around in his pockets for anything that might be of assistance, hollering for a med team that was probably busy with the eviscerated Hyperion soldiers littering the area.

“Haven’t heard ‘fuck-covered honey badger’ before,” Jack said with a peeved snort as Rhys grinned, his teeth white against orange and red speckled face.

Rhys gave the hand Jack was searching through pockets with a tug, getting the older man’s attention back on his face. “This is probably a bad time, but marry me?”

Jack stopped what he was doing to give Rhys a blank look. The younger man just smirked up at him before Jack’s face got furious.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Now? Right now? You actually think you can ask me something like that now, _you little shit_?”

“I’m obviously not gonna make it,” Rhys joked, and Jack wanted to punch him right in his stupid fucking face.

“We’ve got bandits up our asses and you’re laying in the dirt bleeding from the stomach and you think you can ask me to fucking marry you?”

“Well I’d get down on one knee but i think circumstances being what they are…”

Jack was furious that he could be in such a good mood, Rhys' expression light except for when pain lanced through him especially brutally.

“Can you stand you think?” Jack asked, his anger keeping him level-headed, able to still think.

Rhys just raised a brow. “You don’t really expect me to take a knee–”

“I’m gonna get you to transport, shit for brains.”

Rhys grinned. “My guts aren’t gonna go everywhere, right?”

“Fuckin’ christ Rhys…”

“Okay, I’ll stop. But help me up,” he told the older man, trying to take things more seriously, but not too much, otherwise he might go to fucking pieces. “This actually hurts a _real_ lot, Jack.”

The CEO helped him up with only a few screams of pain, and Jack removed his jacket to wad it up over the wound, then removed his chest armor to strap over the younger man for consistent pressure as he helped him to walk. 

Rhys leaned on him as the CEO ordered one of his men to drive them to the shuttles. Finding a car that wasn’t currently being used or on-fire took a few minutes to trek to. Rhys made a joke to go on without him as he saw the height of the vehicle he’d have to climb into. 

“Just shut up and hop in before I dig that shit out with a spoon,” Jack growled. 

Jack held the hand Rhys didn’t keep over his abdomen while he muttered to himself. It wasn’t hard for Rhys to keep his grin low-key as the pain of sitting was especially awful, but he’d successfully distracted the older man from doing anything too stupid. 

“…fucking marry you….I’ll marry my foot to your ass…”

Rhys snorted as laughing hurt too much, whispering to the older man. “Love you too Jack.”

“Shut up. You’re wasting air.” 

His expression might have been furious, but the hand that he entwined their fingers with was firm and gentle. Rhys made a mental note to ask the man to marry him again once they were back on Helios. If Jack didn't marry his foot to his ass first, that is. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was more fun to write than I let on :3 hehhee
> 
> I have a LOT of stories here on the archive (I'm choosy of what I put here) but so many more in my masterpost on tumblr can be found [here](http://purge-that-urge-rhackathon.tumblr.com/post/134979026515/poisonjack-ao3-fic-archive).
> 
> Smoochies!!


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